Below:  Maybole Pipe Band entertains at the New Year's celebration at Carrick Sports Club. Click on the images to view full size.

The children of Primary 4 to Primary 7 of St. Cuthbert’s Primary wowed parents, family and friends with their fantastic performance of “Oliver” on Monday afternoon and evening. The boys and girls acted, sang and danced their way through the show and were rewarded with rapturous applause from their appreciative audience. Andrew Lloyd Webber should look out, St. Cuthbert’s Primary also knows a thing or two about putting on a great musical!

Cast of “Oliver”

Paul Strang, Justin McQuillan, Aidan Keegan, Kyle Campbell, Rachel Campbell, Sam Currie,  Christiane Martin, Niall Murphy,  Phoebe McDowall , Louis Simpson,  Ross Malone,  Annie Eldhose,  Liam Menzies, Amy Malone, David Welsh, Caitlyn McVittie,  Keiran Porte, Roisin McCallum, Kieran Mackin, Nina Sweeney, Chloe Brownlee, Jade Stewart , Stephanie Moore, Ronan McDowall, Zak Roy, Jodie Brownlee, Emily Kiltie, Ciera Campbell,  Lisa McVittie,  Patrick McCahill,  Suilven Hunter, Deaglan Hunter Blair, Jason Tomlinson, Rebecca Campbell, Ryan Sallens, Britanny Campbell, Eric Eldhose, Dara Hunter Blair, Dominik Matyka, Brody Wright,

The Gardenrose Primary School shows. P1-3 Performance was entitled "It's a Baby". All of the children were on stage performing the nativity story through song, led ably by Mrs Cuthbertson. The solo performances were by Logan Blane and Alice McLaughlin who played Violin. All children gave of their very best and were well received by the audience. P4-7 Performance was entitled "Panto Pandemonium". The wicked witch is out to spoil things in Pantoland - will the other characters be able to stop her in time for the Panto Season? A very strong choir was formed from all stages, while the main characters were made up from P6 and P7. These are too many to name individually. The school would like their special thanks go to Miss Nelson for her hard work in making this very special performance come to life.

Panto Magic at Cairn Primary. Pupils at Cairn Primary in Maybole had a whale of a time at their Upper School Performance of ‘Aladdin’s Lump’, a witty take on the traditional Aladdin story. It was hugely successful with around 220 adults attending both performances, evening and afternoon, and everyone loving it! Anndi Clark gave a superbly funny performance as Widow Twankey - (Oh Yes she did!) and Shannon Andrew was brilliantly amusing as Aladdin. Kenneth Tweedie showed what a star he is playing Wishy Washy. Abanaza, the evil magician was played in superb sinister fashion by Heather Dowie. The genie, complete with genie costume, was played by Saul Boyd. Princess Fatima and her father, the Sultan were played regally by Georgia Wallace and Colin Brackenridge respectively. Songs were lively and loads of fun! Mr Black, P7 teacher, and Mrs Fyfe, P5 teacher organised rehearsals and costumes and scenery, and all the children worked really hard to pull off a brilliant performance! A great time was had by all!

Sergeant William Gilmour has retired from the police force and last week Maybole Community Council had a small presentation to mark the occasion. Alex Kelly, vice chairman of the community council, presented Sgt Gilmour with a gift engraved with the town coat of arms and thanked him for his work in Maybole over the past seven years. He also wished him well in his retirement adding that he was sorry to see him go. Sgt Gilmour recounted his time in the police force over the past 30 years and added that his time in Maybole had been the best. “There is a tremendous community spirit in the town,” he said, “and it was a pleasure working with the community council and other local groups.

Maybole Expat Graduates as Vet in Vienna. Where better to celebrate than Austria’s capital, Vienna! Celebrations were due there this Advent as Maybole’s Cameron McCulloch, brother of local piper Bryce McCulloch, graduated in veterinary medicine and surgery from Vienna’s University of Veterinary Medicine. The six-year study, which comes with the Austrian title “Magister”, was a special challenge to Cameron as all the teaching and practicals were in German (with strong Austrian accents), a language he only learned while studying in Vienna. Cameron, a former Carrick Academy pupil, studied as a “mature student” and also holds a Doctor of Philosophy degree in pharmacology from Glasgow University. He currently lives in Vienna with his Austrian wife Alfreda, and when possible regularly visits family in Maybole. Magister" is the Latin term for master, short for "Magister medicinae veterinariae", and since Cameron has his other degree he is officially "Herr Magister Doktor McCulloch".

Maybole Concert Party recently put on a Variety Concert over two nights in Maybole Town Hall to raise money for charity. This year they decided that funds raised would go to Breast Cancer Campaign. They were overwhelmed when they realised they had raised £1,500 from these concerts and as an additional bonus concert party member, Margaret Hutchison, who is employed by The Royal Bank of Scotland was able to claim a further £1,000 under their Community Cashback Scheme. This scheme allows the Bank to support local groups and charities their staff are involved with. The grand sum of £2,500 was last week handed over to Heather and Duncan Muir of Breast Cancer Campaign. Concert party members along with Heather and Duncan would like to say a big thank-you to everyone who helped in raising this magnificent amount.

Maybole Branch of the Royal British Legion Scotland has a new chairman.   For over 10 years Davie Hunter has chaired the branch but he could not attend this year’s AGM due to ill health and he had told members that he would not be standing for the position again.   Brian Connolly has taken over the position and he paid tribute to Davie Hunter’s commitment to the branch and thanked previous committee members for their work in the past year.   Mr Connolly is an elected member of South Ayrshire Council and has previous service in the Royal Air Force.   He joined the RAF in 1983 and underwent training at RAF College Cranwell, RAF Finingley and RAF St Mawgan, prior to his long association with RAF Kinloss where he was a Nimrod aircraft captain.   On completion of a tour as Senior Training Officer at RAF College Cranwell, he returned to Kinloss on promotion to the rank of Squadron Leader.   He completed 19 years of RAF Service with a four year appointment in Norfolk, Virginia, working for a 3-Star US Navy Admiral.  

Other office bearers of the branch are:

Vice chairman                  Robert Malone

Secretary                         George Taylor

Hon Treasurer                Alex Kelly

Padre                                Rev Dave Whiteman

Pensions & Welfare      John Bell

Publicity                          David Kiltie

Parade Marshall            Alex Davidson

Conference & Area Council Delegate   George Taylor

Billy Torbett, of the Welltrees Inn, was thanked for his hospitality over the past year.

NEW TRAVEL SERVICE BRINGS A SMILE TO THE FACE OF ONE OF THE USERS OF TRAVEL CONNECTIONS.

Natasha McGill lives in Kirkmichael and works in Dunure and was finding it difficult and time consuming to get to work. “The bus only runs about every 2 hours from Kirkmichael and it goes all the way in to Ayr and then back in to Dunure” explained Natasha.

When asked about the difference that Travel Connections has made to her life, she replied with a beaming smile “A LOT!  I don’t need to get up as early or hang about for ages waiting on buses! The service is easy to use as it’s just a matter of me picking up the phone and booking my journeys”.

Travel Connections can be used by anyone who lives in the Maybole Fair Share Area requiring transport to access Employment, Education or Training, Health or Welfare Facilities, or Activity Groups. As long as they do not have access to public transport within 30 minutes of the time they need to travel, and they live within the Fair Share area.  This area includes Maybole, Crosshill, Dailly, Dunure, Fisherton, Straiton, Kirkmichael, Kirkoswald, Minishant, Turnberry, and Maidens.

Travel Connections uses Private Hire Taxi Companies and Volunteer Drivers to provide the transport service, and will either take you to your required destination or to the nearest available public transport.

Once you are registered with Travel Connections, you are then able to purchase your travel tickets and make bookings with travel connections staff who will organise a taxi or volunteer driver to come and pick you up. You can buy tickets from your local ‘village champion’ and they cost £3.60 for an adult, and £1.80 for young person – more details when you register. To register with the service contact Sharon on 01465 716633 and she will explain how the service works in more detail. 

Travel Connections also has volunteer driver opportunities and would be delighted to hear from anyone with spare time on their hands.  We also have village champion opportunities so if anyone within the villages is interested in selling travel tickets for Travel Connections, or indeed becoming a volunteer driver please contact William on 01465 716623 for further information.

Support our Soldiers - Scottish Branch. Following a “girlie” chat about Stella Boyd's granddaughter, Sandie Phillips, who had served in Iraq, it was mentioned how pleased the soldiers were to get a parcel. The ladies decided to fill boxes and they got a list of what would be suitable from staff at Heathfield Hospital. Many people in Maybole asked for copies of the list and bags of goodies duly arrived at Anne Girvan’s house. Last week they got together and had a great afternoon filling boxes and, of course, chatting. They would like to offer sincere thanks to all who contributed and an even bigger thanks to the boys and girls in the services who do such a wonderful job under such awful circumstances. They also hope that every member of our forces serving abroad will receive a Christmas box.

The Maybole branch of Save the Children have had a very successful Autumn raising nearly £5000 in the last three months. They held their most successful Golf Day to date at Brunston Castle Golf Club and along with the Ayrshire Schools String Orchestra concert raised in excess of £3000. On the 25th November we had a Come and Sing Messiah in Ayr Town Hall , in memory of William Strachan, which raised an amazing £1500.

At the recent AGM of Maybole Town Twinning Association, the following office bearers were elected: Chair- Hugh Anderson, Vice Chair  - William Grant, Secretary - Lesley Grant, Treasurer - Maureen Craig; Committee - Craig McNair, Sally Anderson, Catriona Grant, and John Campbell. In order to try to re-energise Town Twinning it was agreed that the scheduled December meeting should be cancelled.

The meeting in January will take the form of a “brain storming” meeting and will be held in the new Maybole One Stop Shop in the School Vennel, with a member of staff on hand to act as facilitator. This meeting will be held on Thursday 10 January 2008 and will commence at 5.30pm (to finish about 7pm). Light refreshments will be available.

Retiring chair, William Grant presented his report for the year saying, “The main event for the year 2007 has of course been the celebration and organising of the 25^th anniversary of twinning with Crosne. We attended the Carnival Anniversary event at the end of May, where despite the terrible weather on Carnival Day we still had a great time. The anniversary celebrations in Crosne were very well organised.

Maybole reciprocated in the anniversary by hosting a group of 15 from Crosne. A very good time was had by all and thanks go to all those who made the weekend so successful. And for the first year in many we had more hosts than we needed. Special thanks must go to all those who hosted and were willing to host. It was indeed most enjoyable to look back on the last 25 years of twinning, remembering visits and people.

A school exchange between Carrick and Crosne took place end of March when a party of 32 visited Maybole. The twinning association was involved in this event, driving minibuses and arranging the visit to Culzean Castle.

It is looking unlikely that the proposed visit to Crosne in 2008 will go ahead, unfortunately the Modern Languages Department at Carrick do not wish to continue with the exchange next year. Johnny Rusk is unable to organise it himself, and the only option is if teachers from other departments would get involved. Twinning needs young people to keep it going and we can only hope that someone in the school will come forward.

Throughout the year we were involved in or attended many events

• The Joint Quiz – the latest being held last Friday by Troon, and again we did not fill the last spot so still do not have the wooden spoon.

• Joint South Ayrshire meetings. These are most useful, giving vital contacts with the other associations in South Ayrshire and finding out what they have done.

• Annual grant still being received from South Ayrshire Council, for which we thank them.

Thanks go to the office bearers and committee, and anyone who has helped in anyway during the last 12 months.

At the end of October I attended with Lesley the joint meeting in Arco, which I have produced minutes for and will discuss later. This is very worthwhile not only through the making of contacts but by being part of the whole picture. I thank Lesley for attending this with me and giving of her time at the meeting.

At the celebration of twinning I thanked town twinning for allowing me to be chairman for 17 years, something which I have mostly considered as a privilege, that is why in this your 25th anniversary year that I feel we should be looking at changes, and this is an ideal time to put a new Chair in place. The association must continue to move forward and I feel that it is important that we make the required changes to take forward into the next 25 years.”

Memorial Park Bowling Club prizewinners. Prizes presented at the annual dinner dance held in Maybole Memorial Park Bowling Club’s premises.

Gents Championship                S Carlyle

Ladies Championship               J Kincaid

Junior Championship               C smith

Archie Kidd Trophy                 P McArthur

Nan McDonald                         J Kincaid

Julie Trophy                              J McMaster

Gents Nominate Pairs               P McArthur/S Carlyle

Ladies Nominated Pairs            J McMaster/A MacIntyre

Gents Drawn Pairs                    D Wallace./.R Paterson

Two Bowl Pairs                         Conner McArthur/I Paterson

Gents League                            N MacIntyre

Ladies League                           J McMaster

Junior League                           D Wallace

Novice Trophy                         S Coughtrie

Seniors Trophy                         N MacIntyre

President Cup                            J Kincaid

Ladywell Trophy                       J Kincaid

John Mackie Trophy                 H Hunter/J Campbell/N MacIntyre

Bonnie Trophy                          M Hearton/P McArthur

Tom Henderson Trophy           Amy and Steven Carlyle

Gents Triples                              P MCArthur/S Carlyle/A McFadzean

Ladies Triples                             M Hodge/M Hutton/A MacIntyre

Gents Rinks                                P McArthur/S Carlyle/A McFadzean/D Gass

Ladies Rinks                               H Hunter/J Paterson/M Miller/J Kincaid

Peggy Kelly Trophy                  P McArthur

Wellpark Singles                       J Campbell

Clarke Stephens                        A Carlyle

Crawford Salver                         D & J McMaster

McKissock Rose Bowl             S Coughtrie/M Hearton

Kildoon Mixed Pairs                 C & J Kincaid

Provost Shield                           C Smith & D Wallace

John Jamieson Trophy            C Smith